By Ryan Herrington
Francis Ouimet can give Bobby Jones a run for his money as the most notable amateur ever to win a US Open. The 20-year-old did so in grand fashion, winning the title in 1913 in a historic playoff upset of British greats Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. He did it on the course across the street from his house, The Country Club. Oh, and he put the sport on the map in the US.

Suffice it to say, asking an amateur to repeat Ouimet’s feat 109 years later is a bit much. (No amateur has won a US Open since Johnny Goodman in 1933.) But expecting one (or more) of the 15 guys playing for pride rather than pay this week to step up and show well is very realistic. Last year was the first time since 2007 that no amateur made the cut in the Open. And in the last 24 years, somebody has been around on Sunday to receive the low amateur medal 21 times.

So who is the most likely to succeed from the Class of 2022? Here is our breakdown of the amateurs competing in the USGA’s signature men’s event with their chances of making it to the weekend and vying for low-amateur honors. To sort and manage the group, we’ve created categories of confidence, 3 signifying being most confident to make the cut, down to 1.

Keita Nakajima. Andrew Redington

Confidence Level 3

Sam Bennett, 22, Madisonville, Texas
Keita Nakajima, 21, Japan
Michael Thorbjornsen, 20, Wellesley, Massachusetts
Travis Vick, 22, Hunters Creek Village, Texas
William Mouw, 21, Chino, California

Bennett comes in on a nine-month roll, having earned first-team All-American honours at Texas A&M with a 69.97 scoring average. He also had a top-10 at NCAAs earlier this month after a closing-round 64.

Just as he did at the Masters in April, Nakajima, the reigning Asia-Pacific Amateur champion (he won at Dubai Creek), arrives at the US Open as the No. 1-ranked amateur in the world by a large margin. But expectations are more tempered compared to at Augusta National. That should work to his benefit as he has more experience in professional events than any other amateur in the field, with another top-10 finish in May on the Japan Tour.

We don’t like Thorbjornsen, playing in his second US Open after making the cut at Pebble in 2019, talking about a wrist injury heading into this week at Brookline, with possible surgery awaiting later this year. That said, the Stanford junior-to-be has dealt with a version of this injury since high school and adrenaline should dull all the pain as he plays only 15 minutes from his family home in Wellseley.

Before Vick clinched the deciding point for Texas in its NCAA Championship win earlier this month, he played his way into the US Open in the Dallas final qualifier. If he gets airtime on TV this week, expect to hear a lot about how he was a multi-sport athlete in high school, having played quarterback on the football team and pitcher on the baseball team from a school that produced former MLB standouts Lance Berkman and Andy Pettitte. The experience is something Vick says has been a significant asset in him becoming a talent that reached the US Amateur semifinals last August.

Mouw, a junior at Pepperdine, had six top-10s in 14 starts this past season after playing on the victorious the US Walker Cup in 2021. And his game seems potentially suited to US Open venues; he was medalist in his final qualifier with a 12-under 130 showing at The Olympic Club.

Austin Greaser. David Cannon

Confidence Level 2

Fred Biondi, 21, Brazil
Adrian Dumont de Chassart, 22, Belgium
Austin Greaser, 21, Vandalia, Ohio
Stewart Hagestad, 31, Newport Beach, California
Ben Lorenz, 20, Peoria, Illinois

Biondi will be a fifth-year senior in the autumn at Florida and was runner-up at the 2022 Latin America Amateur. He’ll play for the International Team in college golf’s Palmer Cup later this summer.

The Belgian pipeline to the University of Illinois continued with Dumont de Chassart, who followed in the footsteps of tour pros Thomas Dietry and Thomas Pieters. And he’s had similar success, winning Big Ten player of the year twice.

Greaser, the US Amateur runner-up a year ago at Oakmont, will benefit from having played in the Masters and go through the “oh my gosh, I’m playing a major” tension before.

No amateur might be more motivated to make the cut than US Mid-Amateur champion Hagestad, who had played in three previous US Opens but failed to make the weekend in any of them.

Lorenz just finished his sophomore season at Oklahoma and drove with his older brother/caddie Blake the 12 hours from Arizona to Oregon to compete in his Final Qualifier. He started playing golf at age three and used to watch VHS tapes of Bobby Jones and Jack Nicklaus.

Laird Shepherd. Luke Walker / R&A

Confidence Level 1

Nick Dunlap, 18, Huntsville, Alabama
Caleb Manuel, 20, Topsham, Maine
Maxwell Moldovan, 20, Uniontown, Ohio
Charles Reiter 22, Palm Desert, California
Laird Shepherd, 24, England

Dunlap won the US Junior title last summer, securing his exemption to Brookline. He’s heading to Tuscaloosa to play on the Alabama golf team in the autumn. In addition to his golf prowess, he is past age-division runner-up in the NFL’s Punt, Pass and Kick competition.

Manuel should get some New England love this week, as the reigning Big East player of the year out of UConn. After getting through Final Qualifying he woke up to 250-plus messages on his phone. He first qualified for the Maine Amateur at age 13.

A rising junior at Ohio State, Moldovan was a three-time winner this past season while posting a 70.79 stroke average, the best by a Buckeye since 1980. He and his father, John, a teaching pro who is caddieing for him, drove from Ohio to Boston and then they’ll head to Rhode Island next week to play in the Northeast Amateur.

Reiter, a junior at San Diego, has got three sponsor’s exemptions into The American Express, where he shot a 63 at PGA West during the third round in 2019.

This is the last of the majors that Shepherd is exempt into off his British Amateur victory a year ago, having missed the cut at the Open Championship and the Masters. The timing of the US Open, unfortunately, means he can’t defend that British Amateur title, as the championship is going on this week at Royal Lytham and St Annes.

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The post US Open 2022: 15 interesting facts about the 15 amateurs competing at The Country Club appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Ryan Herrington
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif.—You’ll have to forgive the amateurs who’ll be competing at Pebble Beach if they’re feeling a little déjà vu this week. While only two have played in a U.S. Open previously (mid-amateurs Stewart Hagestad and Matt Parziale), all but one of the 15 who’ll tee it up with a little “a” next to their name on Thursday have played the historic links on the Monterey Peninsula under championship conditions.

And they did it only 10 months ago.

Pebble Beach is the rare course that is hosting a U.S. Open the summer immediately after holding the U.S. Amateur (the last time that happened was in 1999-2000, coincidentally also at Pebble Beach). Except for recent Wake Forest grad Cameron Young, every amateur in this week’s U.S. Open field will enjoy the benefit of that oddity, having played here just last August.

How big a deal is that really? Well, while the rough is thicker and pinched in more than at the Amateur, the firm fairways are much like what they encountered then and the greens might actually be a little softer, at least so far early this week. In other words, those who played last August have a pretty good idea for what lies ahead.

“Obviously the atmosphere and the tournament is different,” said Viktor Hovland, who was the last man standing at the U.S. Amateur, defeating Devon Bling, 6 and 5. “But it’s still the same course and you still have somewhat of the same lines off of the tees. The greens still break the same ways.”

That’s good news for much of this group when you consider six of the 14 from the U.S. Amateur advanced to match play. That suggests that many of the field found at least some success on Pebble’s idyllic but sometimes confounding course, a confidence booster for sure.

This is the seventh straight year at least 10 amateurs are competing in the U.S. Open and the 12th time in 13 years. Meanwhile, an amateur has made the cut in the Open every year since 2007. Given the calibre of this year’s group, there’s no reason to believe that streak comes to an end this week. The real question is how many will be playing all four rounds.

Here is our breakdown of the players and their chances of making it to the weekend and vying for low-amateur honours. To manage the large group, we’ve got them in categories of confidence, 5 being my best bets to make the cut, down to 1 being the least likely (players ranked in order of even more confidence inside the confidence categories.)

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Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images
Viktor Hovland and Rory McIlroy talk during a practice round prior to the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

Confidence Level 5
Viktor Hovland, 21, Norway
Stewart Hagestad, 28, Newport Beach, Calif.
Jovan Rebula, 21, South Africa

Hovland obviously has good memories from Pebble after winning the Havemeyer Trophy last August. He turns pro next week, making his debut at the Travelers Championship. That transition can be tricky at times, and might mean he’s not fully concentrating on his game given potential outside distractions. But Hovland, who finished T-32 at Augusta in April, has the chance to become the first player to win low-amateur honours in both the Masters and U.S. Open in a single year since Matt Kuchar in 1998. It’s an extra bit of incentive that might be the difference maker. “I’m thinking about the U.S. Open right now,” Hovland insists, “and when I get to Connecticut next week, I’ll be, OK, am I even in the U.S., and then we’ll figure that stuff out.” … Hagestad has an incentive, too. This is his third straight Open appearance, the first amateur to get in three years in a row since the 1980s. But he has yet to make a cut in his two previous attempts after famously ending a nearly 30-year streak of U.S. Mid-Amateur champs missing the cut at the Masters in 2017. … Rebula, the reigning British Amateur champion, also has major-championship experience, having played in last summer’s Open Championship at Carnoustie and the Masters in April, but missing the cut in both. Even so, Ernie Els’ nephew, who also won the SEC individual champion at Auburn in April, has the game get to the weekend.

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Confidence Level 4
Cameron Young, 22, Scarsborough, N.Y
Matt Parziale, 32, Brockton, Mass.
Chun-An (Kevin) Yu, 20, Taiwan

The most well-known name of this bunch is Parziale, who won the 2017 U.S. Mid-Amateur and took a leave of absence as a firefighter in Massachusetts to enjoy the spoils of victory. He played in the 2018 Masters and then shared low-amateur honours at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. After his dream summer ended—which including getting married before playing the U.S. Amateur at Pebble—so did his days as a firefighter as Parizale returned home to start a new career in the insurance business. It would appear the new job has given him time to sneak in a little more golf—he reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball in May before advancing through U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying. … Those who live in the New York Metropolitan area have likely heard of Young, who won the New York State Open as an amateur in 2017, while also claiming three college titles as a senior this past season at Wake. Young’s father, David, is the head professional at Sleepy Hollow Country Club. … The most talented of this threesome, however, might be Yu, who just earned first-team All-American honours at Arizona State after finishing third at the NCAA Championship.

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
Matt Parziale celebrates winning a share of low-amateur honours at the 2018 U.S. Open.

[divider] [/divider]

Confidence Level 3
Devon Bling, 19, Ridgecrest, Calif.
Austin Eckroat, 20, Edmond, Okla.
Daniel Hillier, 20, New Zealand
Kevin O’Connell, 30, Jacksonville, Fla.

Bling, a rising junior at UCLA, made the cut in the Masters, finishing 55th. That and memories of his run to the finals at the U.S. Amateur at Pebble last August have to make him optimistic about his chances this week. … Eckroat, who just finished his sophomore year at Oklahoma State, is playing in his first pro tournament. He might not get the headlines that teammate Hovland or NCAA player of the year Matthew Wolff, but he did have a win and six top-10 finishes in college this past season. … If you’re looking for a sneaky pick among the amateurs, Hillier might be your man. He birdied four of his final six holes during sectional qualifying in England to earn his way to Pebble. And at the U.S. Amateur last year, shared medalist honours. … O’Connell is the reigning U.S. Mid-Amateur champion who has a chance at playing on the U.S. Walker Cup team this September with a good showing this week.

Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images
Daniel Hillier looks on during day one of the 2019 New Zealand Open.

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Confidence Level 2
Chandler Eaton, 21, Alpharetta, Ga.
Michael Thorbjornsen, 17, Wellesley, Mass.
Brandon Wu, 22, Danville, Calif.

Eaton will be a senior at Duke in the fall and was an All-ACC selection this past season after having six top-10 finishes along with a T-15 at NCAAs. Both of his parents played college golf. Our only reservation here is that this is his first start in a pro event, so nerves might come into play. … Same for Thorbjornsen, won the U.S. Junior title at Baltusrol last summer when he defeated good friend and junior phenom Akshay Bhatia in the final. He’ll be a senior in high school this fall and has made a verbal commitment to play at Stanford in college. … Given this, he might want to connect with Wu, who just wrapped up his college career with the Cardinal last month by helping the team claim the NCAA title.

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Confidence Level 1
Noah Norton, 20, Chico, Calif.
Spencer Tibbits, 20, Vancouver, Wash.

Norton has been a starter at Georgia Tech for all but one event during his first two seasons with the Yellow Jackets, and had a 70.73 stroke average in 2018-’19. He lives a few hundred miles away from Pebble, and says that he and his family came to watch the U.S. Open when it was played here in 2010. Not long after he made it a goal to try to qualify for the Open the next time it came to Pebble. … Tibbits also is two years into his college career, having been an honourable mention All-Pac 12 selection at Oregon State this past season.

The post U.S. Open 2019: Everything you need to know about the 15 amateurs playing at Pebble Beach appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.